Super Princess Peach

I’ve been putting a lot of intellectual labor into my playthrough of Twilight Princess. This has been a lot of fun, but I’ve been getting cravings for a brain-free playing experience. My usual go-to when I want to veg out in front of the tv for two or three evenings is A Link to the Past, but I’m already up to my chin in Zelda, so that’s not going to work.

I recently came across an interesting essay on gender and gaming briefly referencing how Super Princess Peach is not considered “a real game” in some circles because it’s too “casual.” That sounded like exactly what I was looking for, so I ordered a copy.

Here is the game description taken from the instruction manual:

This is Vibe Isand, located a short distance away from the Mushroom Kingdom. Bowser got his hands on the Vibe Scepter hidden here and used its strange powers to capture Mario and his friends.

So Bowser got his hands on Peach’s “vibe scepter.” Haha, wow, okay.

Innuendo aside, this game is cute and charming. It feels more like Yoshi’s Island than Super Mario in the sense that its focus is more on exploration and less on not dying. I want to say that the graphics look charmingly retro, but I guess this game did actually come out almost ten years go. Ugh, what happened, how did I get old.

Some people might consider this game to be “easy,” but I’d rather label it as “low stress.” There are two reasons for this. First, the levels are more like interactive mazes than obstacle courses, and there’s no timer, so the player is free to take her time to explore them. Second, Peach starts off as powerful and gradually becomes even more powerful, so the obstacles the game does throw at the player can be overcome by creative problem solving instead of by platforming prowess. (Of course you can treat the game like a platformer if you want to challenge yourself, and it’s really fun to do speed runs.)

The main thing about this game is that it’s adorable. Here are two examples…

When Peach invokes her anger powers, she goes balls-out batshit; but, when she un-invokes them, she shrugs her shoulders and brushes herself off before returning to normal. She is such a badass.

When Peach beats a level boss, she frees a Toad, and she and the Toad clasp hands and spin around before doing a victory pose. At the end of the seventh level, Peach frees Luigi. When she tries to spin with him, he messes it up and goes flying before falling to the ground. Peach looks at him to make sure he’s okay before doing the victory pose by herself.

I love these characters so much. There’s no helping it; I just love them.

This game is awesome. Now where is the sequel? WHERE IS THE SEQUEL.

I’d like to conclude this post with an epic Nintendo princess battle:

And then they were best friends forever and lived happily ever after. ❤